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5 years ago today our precious Stella Joy took her last breath in the arms of Aimee and I. A circle of family members were in the room with us, bearing witness to this painful yet peaceful moment in our lives.

She died at 5:10pm and a piece of me died with her that day. Nothing has ever been the same.

The ground shifted five years ago and we lost our footing. But we are still hanging on. Still choosing to find out joy amidst the realities of work, dishes, shopping, cooking, cleaning, karate lessons and swimming. It’s not always easy. Some days as I struggle to understand why little boys insist on jumping off every piece of furniture in eyesight, I can see Stella’s bright grin in my peripheral vision.

Her five year death anniversary happened to fall on a weekend this year. Insignificant except for the fact that we have faithfully gone to Great Wolf Lodge on her death anniversary every year. The day of the week never matters to us,we just go. But this year because it was on a weekend there happened to be a whole other group of people who came to Great Wolf Lodge at the same time as us. People who witnessed our journey and were strong enough to stay with us even when we got ugly and the situation got impossibly hard.

So this anniversary of Stella’s death was chaotic and loud and full of laughter and hugs. In our room last night we had 27 people eating pizza and cake. Kids ran non stop in and out of the room chasing each other and shouting. Adults perched on chair arms and the beds visiting and yelling to hear each other over the din of 12 kids.

It was so comforting to have all these people there. No one was talking about Stella but everyone was thinking about her.

I have so much to write and so much to say but will have to do a longer post in a few days as right now I’m typing this on my phone in a pitch black room at Great Wolf Lodge while Sam snores in my ear.

So for now I will just tell you that we are here.

That on our way we went to Stella’s tree and bench and ate Timbits.

That I went on a water slide today with Gracie and screamed my head off.

That I ate ice cream for Stella.

That Adele cooed, Hugo laughed and Sam giggled.

That we remember everything. We remember when the first crisp autumn day arrives. We remember when we see how big Stella’s friends have gotten. We remember with each breath, each smile, each tear.

That we are different people now. For better or for worse we are all changed.

That life is hard but we choose joy anyway.

And that…we are okay.

Aimee, Adele and the boys enjoy a late fall day at the cottage:

Adele visiting Stella’s tree with some timbits 😁

“The kids” on Stella’s bench (Hugo, Xavier, Gracie, Adele, & Sam):

Some of kids in our room at Great Wolf Lodge, last night for a pizza party…

In October of this year it will be 5 years since Stella died. Most days it seems like a lifetime ago when we held her warm weight on our lap for hours at a time on the couch and spent our days feeding her porridge, doing puppet shows and watching Dora the Explorer. I wonder sometimes who those people were sitting on the couch. So unrecognizable from who we are today. Strangers living in our house.

I was telling Aimee a few weeks ago that I feel so badly because I don’t really have any memories of the boys as babies. We were there and I thought we were present, but either I was so distracted just trying to survive, or my memory refuses to go back to that place of intense fear and grief, that I have no recollection of that time when the boys were babies. Particularly Hugo. I don’t remember his first word, when he first walked, what he and I did all day when I was on maternity leave with him. With Sam I have some sporadic memories, mostly connected to Stella like the first time she held him, taking them both out for Hallowe’en, watching her burp him, going for walks and feeding the birds. But Hugo— almost nothing. So one night when I was up at 2am with baby Adele, it occurred to me that through my writing, I had captured my life back them. Like a journal. I went back to my blog and I started to read.

I read entries that I haven’t looked at or lay eyes on in over 4 years. It was like reading a novel for the first time. Through the writings I began to piece together what life was like for Sam and Hugo just before and just after Stella died, when my memory is a black hole. As I read more and more entries, I started to feel like I was creating the memories of them. One particular entry titled “Hug”

were especially helpful to my learning about the early years of the boys. After I read the one called “Hug” I sat back and thought to myself, “Wow! That sounds so crazy and chaotic…how on Earth could someone deal with two such young kids?” As though I was reading a stranger’s story instead of my own. I ended up staying up way too late— long after Adele was fast asleep in my arms I sat in the dark livingroom and read blog entries from the dim light of my cell phone. I did close ups of the photos and marvelled at how much Adele looks like Hugo at this age, and how cute Sam was when he used to wear little dress shirts and fedoras. It was like discovering a lost friend and catching up.

The memories I have of the boys come into clear focus around the same time we bought our cottage, Bluebird, in July of 2013. Maybe it’s because that’s when we started to make memories as a family experiencing things we never did with Stella– canoe rides, walks in the woods, campfires roasting marshmallows. Maybe the cottage was my reset button. I’m not really sure, but I know that I have a really hard time recalling much about them before that summer after Stella died.

Now with cottage season upon us again, I am able to watch the boys and who they have become with a genuine excitement. And little Adele wrapped snugly in my arms is a promise of the future, of making more memories with our family and keeping our promise to Stella to find joy in day to day life.

Xavier, Sam and Hugo start another summer season at the cottage:

The boys have really started to differentiate themselves. Up until now “the boys” as we call them have been bought the same things, put in the same extra-curriculars, treated the same way. But now they are asking for change. Xavier and Sam love sports and want to play baseball, hockey, do karate, run around everywhere. Hugo has no interest in sports but has a newfound passion for building things with wood, hammers and nails. He wants to do build with lego and asked me to find him a choir to join so he can sing. It’s fun watching the kids develop into individuals. It makes me excited for the future. But as with everything, it also comes with a certain sadness. Who would Stella have been? What would she have liked to do? Would she have been heading off to overnight camp with Gracie this summer?

Sam kayaking

Hugo ready to build

Aimee and I have realized that there is great normalcy in our abnormality. I know this may not make sense, but on the surface we are like all the other families. Wake up in the morning, get ready for work/school. Have conversations about what to have for dinner, bicker with kids about wearing sunscreen, eat dinner, do laundry, read kids books at night, tuck them in, clean the kitchen, pack lunches. But in between all those normal moments there is a sadness and a knowledge of something much deeper that simmers just below. The abnormality. Waking the boys up in the morning at 6:30am and remembering how for Stella that would have been a big sleep-in. The little moment as we discuss what to make for dinner when we giggle about how Stella loved edamame. The empty bottle of sunscreen we keep in the bathroom with Stella’s faded name still on it from when she was at daycare. Realizing the boys don’t want to read Stella’s old books anymore but are asking for ones about superheroes and construction. Tucking them into their beds with a full awareness that this is Stella’s old room. Singing lullabye’s to Adele and trying NOT to sing the same ones we did to Stella because it feels like we are betraying both our daughters somehow.

Adele. The only child that Stella never laid eyes on, but they are connected perhaps even more deeply than Stella and the boys. When we hold Adele and look into her sage eyes we always feel as though she knows more than she is letting on. “Little Yoda” we call her sometimes.

Adele is lovely. I’ve heard of babies like her, but never experienced one before. Very calm and easygoing. A good sleeper. Smiley. In so many ways she is the polar opposite of who her sister was, which makes it easier to not compare the two of them so much. When I took Adele for her 2-month appointment, the nurse did her measurements and said, “all great!”. I took that to mean average and texted Aimee to say, “Another textbook baby!” —Because Stella and the boys were always in the 50th percentile for height/weight etc.so we joked our specialty was perfectly average babies. A few minutes later the Doctor came in and revealed that Adele is actually in the 90th percentile for height/weight and the 95th percentile for head circumference. I texted Aimee back..”Actually…this one is much bigger”. Another reminder that she is different. We have always known she would be, but it’s helpful that she’s decided the same thing!

Adele, two months:

It is my hope that with Adele I remember better than with the boys. She is our last baby so I’m trying to take it all in. To enjoy the way she flops against my chest breathing deeply through her nose, her first smiles at me, the delight the boys get from “helping” (i.e. Wanting to carry her around which terrifies me, or feeding her a bottle which they shove in her mouth and gag her with, or designating her the Pink Power Ranger in their game and “pretending” to karate chop her). I pay close attention to the exact angle her nose is turned up at, how her little hand feels grasped in mine and the feathery softness of her hair brushing against my chin as I burp her. The tiny moments are being noted.

I’m sitting in the backyard right now typing this. Adele is curled up on a picnic blanket looking up at the leaves in the trees rustling gently in the summer breeze. Sam is riding around on his bike, going as fast as he can then braking as fast as he can to see if he can make the tires squeal. Hugo is focused on checking all the boards on the deck to see if there is a loose one he needs to put another nail in. It’s a quiet, peaceful scene. A welcome break from the insanity that is usually our life. When I’m done this blog entry I will sit back in my chair, take a sip of lukewarm tea and repeat my new mantra with the knowledge that we are okay.

April 18th, 2017 would have been Stella’s 8th birthday. Picturing Stella at 8 is fairly foreign to me. Her friends who are that age seem like mini adults to me. They are not generic little toddlers any longer, but fully formed people with likes, dislikes, hobbies, friends, etc. I can’t imagine what life would have been like “if”. We would likely have just had Stella and Sam (who would not have been named Sam), because we never planned on having more than two children. And they would be 8 and 5 now, so we would be in a totally different part of our lives than what we are now. I still get jealous sometimes of our friends who have the older kids. It’s not that I don’t love the choices we’ve made and that I’m not happy with our family and our lives, but I feel like I will always have the feeling that we are “behind” somehow. It’s complicated and hard to explain, but it’s like being a younger sibling and constantly feeling like your older sibling is getting to do more than you. You can’t run as fast, you can’t stay up as late, you can’t play the same games. At some point it all evens out, but I can’t help but feel left behind somehow. Especially now when we have made the decision to start over again with a newborn baby.

My due date for the new baby was April 17th. There were camps of people that were hoping the new baby would be born right on Stella’s birthday. That would be so full circle. So Hollywood. I was adamant that this baby could be born any day EXCEPT on Stella’s birthday. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be for a little girl to have to share her birthday with her dead sister. I didn’t want to have to deal with another layer of complicated grief on that day. So I proclaimed to the universe that this baby would have its OWN birthday. I even did a bit of research to find out what would happen *if* your baby was born one day and when you filled out the paperwork online, you put another date if it would be caught. Just in case.

When Stella’s birthday arrived on April 18th, I breathed a sigh of relief that there were no labour signs. Compared to past years, her birthday was very quiet. I struggled quite a bit that day. It was a very strange feeling to be remembering the birth of our first child, our beloved daughter Stella, while 9 months pregnant with our fourth child, another daughter. Aimee and I had a couple of big cries, and for the most part we just stayed close to home. We got lots of texts from friends remembering her on that day, and each one made me cry that even without us reminding people of mentioning it, those people whose lives she touched remembered. Aimee and I visited her tree and brought some timbits and a balloon and candle to mark what would have been her 8th birthday. It was a little less emotional than it could have been because it just so happened that while we were there two people had parked themselves on her bench and were drinking and laughing and gossiping loudly with one another the whole time we were there. I thought Stella probably would have thought that was pretty funny, and it definitely kept our tears at bay as the two women sitting there were oblivious to what we were doing and who we were and continued to talk about their shopping trips and boyfriends and sip on their latte’s while we lovingly wrapped ribbons around the trunk of her tree and put up the balloon with #8 on it.

We then picked the boys up early from school and brought them to Chuck E Cheese for dinner. It was just the four of us until my sister came, and that was it. No other family or friends were able to come because it was a Tuesday and everyone was working, but it was perfect in its own way. The boys loved it and Chuck E Cheese was empty, so they thought it was the greatest thing ever. When we got home my mom and brother came over and sang Happy Birthday to me and Stella. Then it was over. A mixture of happiness, sadness, quiet, noise, grief for the past and anticipation of the future.

Chuck E Cheese:

Once her birthday was over, our family and friends went on full “baby watch”. Since this baby was my third pregnancy, everyone—-even the midwife—- expected me to go fairly close to my due date. But the days past and nothing happened. I was off work as of April 5th, and filled my days visiting friends, shopping, relaxing and enjoying nights of sleep. “Any baby yet?” texts filled my phone each day. As the days passed by, our midwife started asking about induction. At 41 weeks pregnant, we agreed to induce a couple of days later if I didn’t go into labour on my own. The days passed and still nothing, so at 7:00am on April 26th Aimee and I met our midwife at the hospital and prepared to meet our newest daughter. I actually thought it was a quite civilized way to do things. With a known date we were able to arrange for childcare for the kids, let our support people for labour know to take the day off work, and prepare the boys for the day their sister would be born. It really appealed to my type A personality!

Aimee and I just outside the hospital on our way in for our induction:

Labour itself was—-labourious. Luckily we have the absolute best midwife in the entire world (Christie who also delivered Sam and Hugo), and when the going got tough, she made it all okay.

After a nerve-wracking few moments during delivery when she got a bit stuck and I swore like a sailor, our baby was born and as she was placed on my chest I turned to my dad and said, “I can’t believe I have a daughter again!”. The room was fairly vibrating with emotion. Happiness, sadness, relief, joy.

Her name was fairly easy to settle on. Stella had named both of her brothers after her favourite books. Sam is from the Stella & Sam book series, and Hugo she chose for her favourite book King Hugo’s Huge Ego. When it came time to name our newest child, we went right to Stella’s bookshelf again and pulled another of her favourite books, Adele & Simon. There are 3 books in the series which focus on Adele and her little brother Simon. Simon is always losing things and the reader has to find in the picture where he has lost the item. Stella loved finding things and even as her body failed her she would life her shaking arm and smack her hand down on the page where the items were found.

The kids pose with Stella’s favourite books that inspired their names:

Adele’s middle name Margaret is a family name; both the name of my mother and Aimee’s grandmother. We also like that the initials are AM (Aimee-Mishi)

The boys are delighted with their new sister. They vacillate between being fascinated with her, and ignoring her completely, which I imagine is completely normal for a 4 and 5 year old.

Adele is one week old today and we are all still adjusting. My past of anxiety and depression puts me at high risk for postpartum, which I struggled with after both Stella and Hugo’s births. I’ve definitely been weepy and emotional the last few days. I’ve had several bouts of “how the heck are we going to balance all of this” breakdowns. Thoughts of how active the boys are and how much energy they require and whether it’s humanly possible to keep up with the demands of this new dynamic with our careers and at our ages make me nervous. So I’m being very gentle with myself. Trying to sleep as much as I can (with the help of my awesome wife), and remind myself that these feelings are normal.

Adele has much darker hair than either Stella or Hugo, and looks like no one but herself which is comforting in some ways. As our last baby (yes—-she’s it, promise (o; ), I am working very hard to be present with her. I have pretty much zero memories of Sam and Hugo at this age. We were so grief stricken and moved around in a fog. We had so many people around all the time to hold the babies. So this go around I am taking the time to really try to enjoy the way her little body feels when she is sleeping on my chest. I am taking note of the curve of her little nose and her little rosebud lips. I am stroking her hair and trying to make a memory of how soft it is, and when I’m up with her at night I keep reminding myself that this stage doesn’t last forever and that someday—- we will sleep again.

Christie our midwife came for a visit a few days ago. She asked how it was going and I unleashed on her a torrent of words about my insecurities and fears about balancing everything. I said that the past weekend was hard having her and the boys at home, that I felt overwhelmed and Aimee and I couldn’t figure out how to keep on top of the grocery shopping and laundry and making lunches. I felt tired and stressed.

Christie listened and gave some advice. As she was putting her coat on to leave, she said, “it’s nice to have you talk about all these completely average and normal fears”. She reminded me of how with the last two babies we had people dropping food off all the time, people volunteering to sleep over and do all the overnight shifts with the babies, people to take them out during the day. Now it’s just us trying to figure it all out. Her observations stopped me in my tracks and I had to laugh.

She is so right. Instead of being worried about our dying daughter. Instead of wondering how we were going to wake up and survive the next day weighed down with so much grief and confusion swirling around, our worries this time are the same as almost all new parents. And we are trying to do it ourselves. We need to do the grocery shopping, the laundry, the overnights, the caregiving. We are a “normal” family. It’s foreign in a way. Although it’s our fourth child, we’ve actually never done this before.

This is one of the many, many times in my life when I am drawing on the experiences and lessons that Stella gave us. To try to look at life in tiny chunks when looking at it for longer is too overwhelming. When the years seem too long, focus on the month or the day or the hour or even the minute until it passes. To try to find the joy in each and every day. When I felt overwhelmed at having the boys and Adele home for dinner at the same time, because the boys were fighting and not listening and I needed to feed Adele, I remembered how lucky I am to have three healthy, energetic children. Then I decided to stop struggling with them and just make it easy on myself, remembering that having ice cream for breakfast once in awhile doesn’t do any long term harm, I turned on the TV and let the boys sit on the couch and watch it (which they normally aren’t allowed to do in the evenings). They calmed right down and peace was restored. When Aimee isn’t home and I can’t bring myself to cook, I make it okay to order pizza. And I am allowing myself to look into Adele’s eyes and dream. I’m allowing myself to picture a future with her and Sam and Hugo and try not to be afraid that it will all be taken away from us again.

As we navigate this new normal, as we adjust to this new stage in our lives, I know that Stella’s legacy will help guide me and continue to teach me. And I will always find her smile in the smiles of her brothers and now, her sister.

When I was little my sister and I were obsessed with a 1982 rip-off of the Pirates of Penzance film called “The Pirate Movie”. It’s a poorly acted, low-budget 80’s film that her and I both have a soft spot for even as adults. We have both tried to get other people to watch it and love it as we do, but so far everyone thinks it’s terrible. Still, we know all the songs and sometimes quote entire scenes to each other. It’s one of those comforting memories from our childhood.

One of the things I love about that movie is that it is so happy. It even ends with a song called “Give Me A Happy Ending”. It’s exactly how I want movies to end, with a wedding and everyone being happy and healthy and friends forever. It’s been a joke for everyone my whole life that “Mishi won’t watch movies or read books unless there’s a happy ending”. My best friends know to vette movies for me and will say, “You won’t like it. It doesn’t have a happy ending…”. I’ve never enjoyed watching the nightly news because I always felt like it was all bad news. Maybe I lived by the “ignorance is bliss” mantra.

When Stella was diagnosed with DIPG in June of 2011, along with the intense grief and heartache there was an ultimate feeling of injustice. The “why is this happening?”…”how can this be happening?”… “what do you mean there is no cure?… For someone like me who is fixated on happy endings and refused to watch “Titanic” or “The Notebook” because they were too sad for me, living my own story of heartbreak was incredibly difficult. I still remember the feeling of wanting so badly to crawl out of my skin because I couldn’t stand the pain of living the reality of watching my daughter die. I’ve never wanted to escape from my own life so badly. It was at some points excruciating to be existing in a world where I knew there would be no happy ending for my daughter and I. Eventually, Stella taught me to find the joy in the everyday, and I stopped focusing so much on the “ending” and tried to enjoy the journey instead. Retrospectively, life is a series of beginnings and endings, a quilt of separate blocks all stitched together to create a life. But not straight, organized blocks. Ones that all run into each other where the threads cross over and the shapes are different and sometimes clash. Like a “crazy quilt” I once saw at pioneer village made entirely of leftover fabric pieces. There are natural starts and stops, but no true endings. Even after someone dies, the story doesn’t necessarily end.

I am living life without my beautiful, funny, energetic and incredible daughter Stella, but I am not unhappy. I laugh each and everyday. I sleep at night. I make plans for the future.

When I see photos of Stella, or videos of her, it almost feels like an out of body experience. That life, that world, seems so distant from the one I am ensconced in now. Sam and Hugo are extremely close as brothers and I have trouble imagining life any other way. Sometimes I try to picture Stella there being a big sister to Sam, and no Hugo. But I find it nearly impossible to imagine because the two boys in front of me that are singing and laughing and jumping on the couch in their underwear are so real and three-dimensional whereas Stella is a colour photograph sitting on the mantle behind them. She existed. She lived and she mattered and she changed everything I thought I knew and wanted. But she is not here being part of our daily routine of waffles for breakfast and packing backpacks for school. I don’t even know if Stella ever ate a waffle. She ate maple & brown sugar porridge. That was a different block of the quilt.

Like most parents, Aimee and I are exhausted nearly all the time. Between working full time and making dinners and lunches and cleaning the house and doing laundry, we always seem to be short on time and energy. But last night Hugo and Sam asked us to be special guests at a show they were putting on. They moved the kitchen chairs to in front of the couch, took the cushions off the couch to create their “stage” and invited us in. With whispered plans to one another, they started strumming on their “canjo’s” (like a banjo, but made out of a can) and singing the Barenaked Ladies tune, “If I had a million dollars”. Aimee and I were in stitches. They were so funny and watching them interact was beautiful. Aim turned to me and said, “Sometimes when I watch them like this my heart feels so full, I’m so happy”.

It’s moments like those that we treasure and cherish. The non-public, non-planned, silly little family moments that take place within the walls of our tiny bungalow in East York.

it’s moments like those that made Aimee and I want to have one more child. One more chance to create silly, funny memories.

After years of negotiating, talking, saving and planning, we decided to try to have one more. We doubted ourselves, doubted our ability to manage another child. We questioned whether the want was part of a never-ending wish to fill the void left by Stella that we know can never be filled, but we live with everyday. We talked about the financial strain, the exhaustion, how old we now are. We discussed if the same sperm donor that we used for Stella, Sam and Hugo wasn’t available, was it a deal-breaker for us. We talked and discussed and disagreed for over two years. We went back and forth. It was one of those decisions that makes no sense whatsoever on paper, that is completely illogical and maybe even a bit irresponsible. But somehow, eventually, during one of those magical moments where the house was clean and the boys were sitting colouring quietly, it just felt like the right thing to do.

We said we would try once. So we did, and it didn’t work. When the pregnancy test came back negative, part of us was sad and part of us was relieved. We thought maybe it was too crazy anyway.

It took 6 months to save up enough money to try again. We agreed that if it didn’t work we would just be happy with our sons because we didn’t have the money to keep trying and we rationalized that maybe it was the universe— or more precisely Stella— telling us not to be selfish, and just be fulfilled with the incredible life that we already had.

So we tried one more time. The LAST time, we said.

It worked. Positive pregnancy test.

And then we waited to see if the pregnancy would be viable. I was 37, my job was physical, so many things could go wrong. So we waited. And everything seemed to be fine.

So, if all goes well, I will be giving birth to our baby #4 in late April.

Our friends and family were surprised. In fact, when we started sharing the news with people, there was a mixed bag of reactions. Some people seemed thrilled, some people seemed cautiously excited and some people came right out and said they thought it was a bad idea. Some of the comments hurt. It was hard to feel judged and hard to remain strong in our conviction that this was the right thing to do when so many people seemed so judgemental. It made me angry that people outside of our little private family unit thought they had a say in our decision. “What gives them the right?” I raged at Aimee. She, much calmer than me, rationalized that everyone loves us and was worried about us. They weren’t privy to the two years of discussions we had, the therapy and the whispered conversations at night. But still, it hurt. Telling people we were pregnant was totally different from our other experiences. When I was pregnant with Stella, everyone was absolutely over the moon excited. Sam was the same. When I got pregnant with Hugo, I think a lot of people thought we were being rash and crazy, but they didn’t say anything because Stella was dying and the pregnancy with Hugo was keeping me alive. But with this one… we felt openly judged. We know people were whispering behind our backs questioning our reasons and our sanity. So we didn’t tell too many people. It was an odd feeling to be so excited about something and yet afraid to tell people.

When I was 20 weeks pregnant we were able to have an ultrasound that would tell us if the baby looked healthy, and the sex. For the most part, I wanted the sex to be a surprise because I really and truly didn’t care if it was a boy or a girl, but Aimee thought it was important that we know— she said if there was any emotional fallout based on sex, we should try to deal with it ahead of time. So we went together to the ultrasound. The night before I had a very vivid dream of Stella. it was surprising to me because I never dream about Stella. But there she was. In my dream she was tiny like a little fairy with wings and she was flying around my head. She said to me, “Mama…the new baby is a boy. I don’t want you to be sad Mama, but I want to be your only girl”. In my dream, I assured Stella that I wasn’t sad it was a boy. I told her that I loved her brothers very much and that I loved how they were close to Xavier and the three boys do all their activities together, and since my sister just had another boy in May, I told her that it would be nice for the younger two boys to have each other too. Then I reminded her that Gracie was like a little mother to all the boys, and would be happy to have another one to look after.

When I woke up that morning, I told Aimee about my dream and felt completely and totally relaxed going into the ultrasound. I felt very at peace and very excited at the thought of having another boy. The technician was very quiet though out the ultrasound and then he invited Aimee in to see the baby at the end. Aimee asked the technician whether he could tell if it was a boy or a girl. He nodded that he did and asked if we wanted to know. Aimee said, “yes, what is it?” He pulled up a fuzzy black and white ultrasound image, pointed at a blurry part near the middle and said, “it’s a girl”. “It’s a girl!??” Aimee practically shouted. I felt numb, immediately going in to complete shock. My pulse quickened and I felt a bit lightheaded. “Are you sure?” I stuttered. He pointed at the picture and said with a straight face…”well, I’m not totally sure but there is definitely no penis, so…” I got up off the table and went into the change room leaving Aimee excitedly texting her parents in the other room. As I bent over to put my pants on, I saw tears hitting the worn blue carpet beneath my feet. I hadn’t realized it, but I was crying. I kept wiping the tears away as I dressed, but they just kept coming. The wave of emotions was totally overwhelming. I felt happy, but also sad. I was shaking a bit. I was so sure it would be a boy, I had’t really let myself consider that it was a girl. “a daughter…girl…a daughter…” I was almost completely quiet on the car ride back home. Aimee kept saying to me, “what’s wrong with you?” but I couldn’t find the words to explain it. I was happy, but I was also truly shocked and I couldn’t understand why I would dream of Stella telling me it was a boy, when it wasn’t. My friend Omo said to me when I told her the story later, “What do you mean, that’s SO Stella…she was totally messing with you!”. I laughed ruefully at that. True. I could so see Stella thinking that was a really funny joke to play on me.

When we told the boys they were excited, but slightly indifferent as well. Not too surprising. At 4 and 5, they are way more focused on lego and sword fights than a new baby. It’s a bit abstract for them. As more people were told or heart we were pregnant, we kept getting asked, “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”. It amazes me how many people when told it’s a girl react in a very relieved and “oh, that’s amazing…you needed a girl”. It makes me think that if this baby was a boy people would be disappointed or upset by it. My favourite reaction was an acquaintance who said, “Oh my God, it’s a girl!? That’s amazing! if your life was a movie, this would be the happy ending!” As often happens in my life now, this seemingly innocent and very well-meant comment really bothered me. She may be right—- if my life was a movie, it would probably end with a close up shot of Aimee and I cradling a new baby girl with a picture of smiling Stella just over our shoulders in the background. But my life isn’t a movie, and having a baby girl isn’t the “happy ending” of Stella’s story. Like everything else in life, it’s just another piece of the story that continues to unfold. It is neither an ending nor a beginning, but simply a continuation of a life that is full of joy, pain, grief, stress, love and hope.

I still don’t like to watch movies or tv shoes that are sad. I still prefer to believe in, and want to see and experience, happiness in the stories I read and watch.

Sometimes late at night when I’m lying in bed and the baby is moving around, I put my hands on my stomach and sing her the lyrics of the Pirate Movie song, “Give Me a Happy Ending”

No more sad times, mad, or bad times,

No more minor keys

Life’s for living, sharing, giving,

Life’s for you and me

When the going’s rough and you’ve had enough,

Leave your troubles and your woes

Turn the other cheek and forget your grief,

Make a friend out of your foe

Give me a happy ending every time

We’ll kiss and make up,

That’s a very peaceful sign

Give me a happy ending every time

Don’t be unhappy, everything will work out fine.

Grief is so complicated, even Aimee and I don’t always expect or understand how we feel. But I know for absolute certain that I am excited to welcome a new baby to our amazing circle of family and friends. I know that she will be different from Stella and I never want her to feel like she is living in the shadow of her dead sister. We have no plans to name this baby after Stella, or put her in any of Stella’s old baby clothes. This is a different child. She is not a replacement child, she is a new member of our family. She isn’t our happy ending, but she is certainly a happy part of our life. And we can’t wait to meet her!!!

Well, here I am sitting on the itchy, crumb-covered carpet at Great Wolf Lodge while the kids colour Power Rangers pictures next to me and Aimee watches CNN—hanging on to every detail of the upcoming US election (sigh). It’s a slightly different scene every year, but the cast of characters never changes. Me, Aimee, Gracie, Sam, Hugo, Auntie Angie (and, until this year, Juju— but she had to work) show up at the doors of Great Wolf Lodge to both celebrate and grieve the death of our beloved Stella. As soon as the big glass doors swing open and we are greeted by the animatronic howls of wolves, we all feel a sense of deep sadness, as well as comfort. Even though the outside world continues to change and move, Great Wolf Lodge stays the same. We have been coming here for 7 years now and they serve the same bread pudding in the restaurant, tell the same jokes at the end of kids story time, sell the same t-shirts in the giftshop and have the same wallpaper on all the bathrooms in the entire lodge. It’s incredibly comforting. When you come here it doesn’t matter what time it is, what day, or what season, because inside it always smells, looks and feels the same. Because Sam’s birthday is two days before Stella’s death anniversary, we are always here for his birthday. He thinks that’s why we come. We definitely celebrate his birthday while we are here, but it is also our escape from the sadness of “that” day— October 22, 2012. We immerse ourselves in the chaos of noise, sugar and temper tantrums and wait for the day to pass. All the while spending insane amounts of money on sparkly temporary tattoos, oversized cookies and cheap souvenirs.

As soon as Aimee and I start to feel the first hint of autumn in the air, we steel ourselves for that feeling of intense sadness that comes as Stella’s death anniversary approaches. It’s almost a relief when it’s over because the build up is so painful. As each date passes, we are forced to relive those horrible last days which, although they were peaceful and full of love, were excruciating to endure. October 1 was the last day we took Stella out for ice cream. October 9th was the last day Stella opened her eyes and really responded to us. October 11 was the day we thought she was going to die as she gasped for air and shuddered in our arms. October 20th was Sam’s first birthday, and October 21st was Xavier’s. Stella lay dying in our bed, her bony chest slowly rising and falling and we sang “Happy Birthday” to the little kids and held lit cupcakes in front of her motionless body. The tears, which don’t come as often anymore, come easily around these dates. I remember we went to the Funeral Home on Hallowe’en Eve to prepare for her funeral, and then the actually funeral was on November 1. The following week we had her Stellabration at Riverdale Park. The details of all those days play in my brain like an old movie. No matter how I try to distract myself, the memories flood to the surface. I have her little face flash in my mind when I’m unloading the dishwasher. The last outfit Aimee and I dressed her in floats in front of my face as I wait at a traffic light on the way to work. The feel of her soft skin on my chest as she slept next to me wakes me up at night, and it sometimes takes me a second to realize it’s Sam or Hugo that’s crawled into my bed, and not her. Sometimes when I make toast in the morning, I make two pieces of white bread and put honey on one, and jam on the other then cut them into 4’s because that’s how my dad served me breakfast every morning for a year while Stella sat on my lap. When I wake up at night after uneasy dreams, I can’t remember if Stella’s DIPG was a nightmare, or really happened. Then my eyes adjust to the dark and I see the paintings at the end of our bed with her footprints on it, and I remember that she really is gone.

It hurts every single time.

Now she’s been gone 4 years, which means she’s been dead longer than she was alive. Yet the three and a half years she lived I can recall with great detail, whereas the 4 years that have passed since come to me in small chunks. I can remember lots of things, but there are huge chunks of the last four years that are missing. For example, I barely remember Hugo’s first year of life. i don’t know what I did with him all day, I don’t remember when he first spoke, or walked, or got his first tooth. I just know that he was 10 weeks old when Stella died, then suddenly he was 2 and I started remembering again. I know I learned to drive and got my license, but I don’t remember any of my driving lessons. I have forgotten how to cook my Nana’s scalloped potatoes. But I can tell you exactly what I was wearing the day Stella got diagnosed.

I usually reflect as her death anniversary approaches what has changed in the way we live. And as the years pass, the changes become more permanent and pronounced.

I recently realized that one difference in the time that has passed since her death is how I find her. When Stella first died, Aimee and I felt as though we really needed to hang on to her things. Each toy, every piece of clothing, each physical space that she had been in was a memory. We couldn’t stand the thought of getting rid of anything that Stella had touched.

Recently, I’ve been trying to convince Aimee that we should move out of our home. I want to save money and get out of the city. I feel happiest up at the cottage surrounded by trees and water and where the boys can run and not have to worry about cars. I like the pace of life out of there. There is always time to stop an look closely at a turtle crossing the dirt road. The people who live there ask at the grocery store checkout how so and so’s mother is feeling and we spend time as a family reading books and doing crafts instead of being stuck in traffic. But when I talk to Aimee about moving, she always says, “I am never leaving this house. This is Stella’s house…how could you ever want to leave here?”. I have come to realize that Aimee still finds Stella in the walls of that physical space. She can’t stand the thought of leaving the space that Stella was born into, lived in and died in. And when she comes to Great Wolf Lodge, Aimee looks for Stella in the Cub Club and the Warm Pool, and she remembers her little yellow bathing suit and finds her in the shadows under the fake trees in the lobby. But I don’t see Stella on the living room couch, or the splash pad at Great Wolf Lodge. I don’t find Stella in her bedroom at home, or in her little pink teapot that still hang around the house getting played with once in a blue moon by the boys. Aimee loves wearing the t-shirts or sweatshirts we’ve had made over the years that have Stella’s name and picture on them. But I have to be reminded to wear them because although I like them, I don’t find Stella there either.

So I started to ask myself…where do I find Stella? If not in her room, or her toys, or her clothes, or the house…where is she?

I came to the conclusion that because so much of me…my identity, my way of looking at life, my hopes and dreams…have changed since Stella’s diagnosis and death, I find Stella in the way I live my life. I find her when I don’t get frustrated waiting in line at the grocery store because my cashier is “in training”. I find her when I don’t have enough money to pay my phone bill, but I take the kids to Toys’R’Us and spend $40.00 on Lego. I find her at work when a family I’ve helped hugs me after their Funeral and thanks me for making a difference for them. I find her when I give the kids a second cookie after dinner, or let Sam wear pyjama pants to school. I find her when I go for walks and take time to feel the sun on my face and watch an ant crossing in front of me. I find her within me. I have tried to take all the best parts of her and make them a part of me. I don’t need to look for her in a physical sense anymore, because she is in every breath I take.

A few weeks ago, I ran into a very difficult situation at work. After being told I was to be transferred to a new location, I had a concern regarding my new schedule and how it would affect my life at home. “We don’t make business decisions based on personal lives,” I was told. Any questions I asked were either ignored or answered with “that will be decided once you are at the new location”. I was frustrated beyond belief, and that’s when I found Stella. Because as I was sitting in that room, listening to someone tell me that my family took second place to my duty as an employee, I got a moment of intense clarity. There is nothing more important to me than time with my family. I’d rather sell the house and live in an apartment than work a job that keeps me away from birthday parties, thanksgiving dinner, the Christmas Eve church pageant and my kids weekend soccer games. Becoming a Funeral Director has made it abundantly clear to me that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed for anyone. If we are lucky, we get to live to a ripe old age, but even then it is someone’s parent, sister, friend, aunt who dies. And out of all the eulogies I’ve listened to, they all boil down to the same theme— the good times the deceased spent with the important people in their life. What is the purpose of living a life where we forget the things that truly matter? So even though it would make more sense for me to find Stella at the playground she used to love, the Dairy Queen I walked her to, or the yellow monkey shirt of hers Sam sometimes wears, I actually found her in a sterile funeral home office during an intense and difficult conversation. It reminded me of a saying I read a long time ago on a card that said, “She will never be there when you want her, but she will always be there when you need her”.

Sometimes Aimee and I talk about how even though the time after Stella’s diagnosis was the worst time of our lives, it was also the best. Because we had no purpose in life other than to be surrounded by the friends and family who meant the most to us. And even though it is not possible to live a life like that every single day— obviously we need to work and clean and cook— I never want to forget that the most important thing in the world is spending time with the people you love.

So even though I could say that I find Stella on this itchy green carpet at Great Wolf Lodge, I think I really find her in my conviction that the one thing you can never get back, is time. Whenever I want to find her, I just look for the part of myself that is braver now, surer now, and is letting her kids stay up past their bedtime right now because, hey, we’re at Great Wolf Lodge and Stella would have wanted it that way. And yes, Stella, we will be having ice cream for breakfast tomorrow.

xoxoxox

We stopped at Stella’s tree on our way to Great Wolf Lodge to bring some flowers and Timbits (Hugo, Mishi, Gracie, Andge & Sam):

Violet brought Sam his birthday cake at Great Wolf Lodge:

The first day of school…Issac, Mishi, Sam, Hugo & Xavier:

Stella’s little brothers… 4 and 5 already!

We wish we could see Stella in person, instead of visiting her grave at Necropolis Cemetery, but Sam always finds her plaque and gives it a little kiss: